Thomas Körtvélyessy (he/they) is an independent dance artist based in Rotterdam who has spent over 30 years exploring the endless possibilities of contact improvisation. A longtime certified teacher of Kinetic Awareness, he founded Reàl Dance Company in 1997 and has worked with Contact Zone Rotterdam since 2015, alongside guest teaching at ArtEZ Dance Academy Arnhem. He is a proud longtime student of Elaine Summers, the originator of Kinetic Awareness, and has also studied with Mary Fulkerson-O’Donnell, Mary Overlie (Six Viewpoints), Eva Karczag, Natanja den Boeft, Pauline de Groot, and Danny Lepkoff.
Thomas’s teaching helps dancers of any body and experience improve their individual movement and contact skills in a sustainable way that prevents injury, opening space to dance beyond external convention or vocabulary, in the here and now. His practice is founded in Kinetic Awareness, working with one’s own sense of movement and the state of the individual bodymind, often using hollow rubber balls of various sizes to ease articulation and support deep self-massage. On this foundation, he adds principles from Body-Mind Centering and related somatic and improvisation practices, exploring questions like how each part of the body wants to move right now, and how that translates into contact with another dancer.
He holds a special interest in GayBiTransQueer contact improvisation, and offers workshops, private sessions, and online sessions by invitation or appointment. He teaches in English, Dutch, German, and Hungarian.
Website: www.realdancecompany.org / www.kineticawareness.nl
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